Excerpt from:
God Help Me! This Stress is Driving Me Crazy!
Finding Balance through God's Grace
What, Me Worry?
Dismiss all anxiety from your minds. Present your needs to God in every form of prayer and in petitions full of gratitude.
-The Apostle Paul writing from his jail cell to the people of Phillipi (Phil 4:6)
"What do I have to do to get a break?"
Crazy schedules, conflicting responsibilities, complicated relationships, never-ending piles of work and bills, ghosts from the past, and the feeling that we're being pulled in a bazillion different directions. Sometimes it seems like life intends to squeeze us until we POP!
But through all this, there is a constant, quiet voice calling to the center of our soul. In the eye of our mental hurricane, there is a gentle, loving whisper. "O my child, you are busy with many things. Be still. Do not be afraid. I am with you."
God Doesn't Care About My Anxieties, Does He?
Sadly, so many of us doubt that God really cares about our every day anxieties. We forget that the God who has numbered the hairs on each or our heads is not above caring about the petty details of our lives. Instead, we think that God is too busy solving the wars, famines, floods, and the million or so other "real" problems in the world to concern himself with our silly concerns. Shouldn't we just "offer it up" and get over whiny selves?
Well, not entirely.
While there certainly is merit in, as Paul says in Colossians, joining our sufferings with Christ's cross for the good of the Church, this does not mean that God does not wish to deliver us from our anxieties. After all, Jesus reminded us that that just as earthly parents want to give good things to their children, our Heavenly Father--whose love is more perfect and profound than anything we could experience on this earth--wants to shower his goodness upon us. What parent wants his or her child to be consumed with worry? If we, who are far from perfect, wish to spare our children from their smallest sufferings, how much more would our Heavenly Father want to deliver us from our anxieties? When Jesus' disciples began fretting, "What shall we eat? What shall we drink? What shall we put on today?" Jesus comforted them, confident in the providence of his Father, "Do not be anxious.. Seek first the Kingdom of God and all things will be added unto you."
In the two thousand years since Christ walked the earth, the Church has continued to echo this sentiment. From the Apostle Paul-proclaiming from prison no less-that we should not allow anxiety to disturb our minds (Phil 4:6), all the way through to the modern age. As a Catholic, it is significant to me that during the longest pontificate in history, God sent Pope John Paul II to proclaim to the world over and over again, "Be not afraid!" Likewise, every time I go to Mass, I hear these words. "Deliver us, Lord, from every evil and grant us peace in our day. In your mercy, keep us free from sin, and protect us from all anxiety as we wait in joyful hope for the coming of our savior, Jesus Christ. [emphasis mine]"
The ancient Tradition of the Church deems this prayer to be so important that she inserts it into an extraordinarily exalted place; a place many would consider to be smack dab in the middle of the Lord's Prayer! It comes right after, "and deliver us from evil" and before the Doxology (e.g., "For the Kingdom..."). To me, these powerful words represent both a prayer and a promise for every Christian. That the Lord desires to "Protect us from all anxiety."
Do you think, maybe, God is trying to tell us something?
Still, it seems to me that this is an extraordinary thing to pray. Protect us from all anxiety? Isn't that selfish, or at the very least, hopelessly unrealistic? Life is stressful. Dare we ask the Lord to deliver us from something that is as much a part of daily life as breathing? How many of us can even tie our shoes in the morning without experiencing some small pang of anxiety (that's the reason I wear loafers, by the way.....) And yet, those words, "protect us from all anxiety" are repeated every single day in every single Catholic Church throughout the world every time the Lord's Prayer is uttered. Clearly, something must be meant by them. What?